USA: Simply Red's Mick Hucknall talks about his new Latino flavored album and his love for his independent label

British band Simply Red, lead by Mick Hucknall, is out with a new album that reflects their current flirtation with the Latino vibe. Called, "Simplified", the album really has just two new numbers, including Hucknall's favourite single "Perfect earlier hits like "Something Got Me Started", "Holding Back The Years", "Smile", "For Your Babies" and "Every Time We Say Goodbye". Written by Hucknall and produced by Andy Wright, the album is a mix of orchestrated melody and jazz, with heavy Cuban influences. The DVD of "Simplified" was shot in Havana, Cuba, at the Grand National Theater. Hucknall is clearly excited by Cuba. He said, "It's an exotic, interesting location and full of music and a great sense of spirit within the people, and we booked two nights in the Grand National Theater in Havana, beautiful old theatre, and filmed the two nights. And, it was just - we brought in a Cuban orchestra, we had some Cuban dancers and some additional musicians for the show, and before we went there we wanted to have some music that somehow was a bridge, and so we looked at some of the songs that we had and decided to do them in a kind of Latino style, just to make the project synthesize." "Simplified" comes at the heels of the 2003 release "Home," the first album under Simply Red's own Simplyred.com label. It was a hugely successful, platinum album, having reportedly sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide. The singer is clearly happy about not having to be a part of a large music company. He praised the benefits of being independent, emphasizing that he didn't dream about being a musician since the age of four only to join an "industry." Hucknall said, "My foray into independent music was the biggest change for me, the sense of being self-employed or being freelance and then achieving success is so infinitely more rewarding than being part of you know a huge corporation. I've grown disaffected with the idea or the concept of having music associated with the word, "industry". I find it - I find it slightly grotesque." Pushing the idea of having more independent labels in the music business, Hucknall added that he thinks record companies need to reform themselves as their current system of contracts is very unfair. Clearly happy about his own band, which he worked on putting together since 1998, Hucknall said, "We really hit something now where I think the band is at it's absolute peak. We get on so well as a unit, there's eleven musicians in the band. For eleven people to get along so well is quite a miracle, you know, and it shows in the music I think, you know, we play very organically and in an old-fashioned way. We have a real drummer in a room when we do takes, which is something that they used to do in the fifties and sixties, you know, these days it's more like with the drum machine." The band will soon start touring in Scotland and then perform all over Europe until just before December end. Next year, they will be undertaking a major tour, including United States, Japan, Australia and South America.

ITN Source | October 20, 2005

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